The Ubiquitous Librarian (Brian Mathews)

Furloughs and the spirit of generosity

So you might have heard, the ten campuses of the University of California are going to be furloughed. Great time to move here, huh? There are still a lot of details to be worked out but the bottom-line comes down to around 16-18 unpaid days off. We've known this might be coming for several weeks now. At first I thought I'd use this time to tour around California; I really want to visit San Francisco. Then I thought maybe I'll use the time for various writing projects. However a new plan has emerged.

While I was at ALA last week I met with Leonard Kniffel, Editor of American Libraries. In passing he mentioned that during his furlough week he taught at UW-Madison. I really liked this idea. It is a great way to turn a negative situation into a positive and productive encounter. I plan to adopt a similar approach. Any library school that is interested-- I'll happily donate some of my furlough time to talking with your students. This will be online, maybe through Skype or Wimba or any other system your school has access to. Maybe these sessions will fit into a particular class, or maybe it's just something we open to anyone who is interested. I can cover a wide range of topics.

On a similar theme. Something I wanted to do at Georgia Tech but it just never worked out. I'm going to donate half of my speaker and author honorariums (excluding ALA Editions) to the UCSB Library collections budget. It's not much really, just a few hundred a year, but this will give me the chance to select some much needed titles and contribute a bit of my personality to the collection. Let's hope that generosity is contagious!

Goodbye Georgia Tech Library

So this is it—today is my last day. I’m excited about the work ahead, but I wanted to take a minute to reflect on the past four and a half years.  The Georgia Tech Library has been very good to me. The culture is well suited for someone with big crazy empathic ideas. Thanks to the Information Services Department for hiring me and to Admin for trusting me with this whole “user experience” thing. I was definitely in the right place at the right time, and I appreciate it.

Looking back there is only one project that stands out as a disappointment: The Library Blimp. I was talking with a robotics professor about using a roomba as a mobile advertising-bot. He shunned the idea and instead suggested using a blimp. This moved forward and he had a class working on the project. (He used his budget which was nice!) Essentially, the plan was to have a small blimp with a webcam floating around the library (during special occasions, like events or the first week of school) that could be controlled by viewers online. The page would have a chat room or message board, as well as a guided tour feature. But one thing led to another—there were server issues, driver problems, etc and now the blimp lives somewhere over in the College of Computing. I wish we could have gotten it to work, even if just for one day. A student wrote an academic paper about this project—if you want to read it drop me an email.

Those are the type of crazy ideas that I’m talking about that are possible here. I wish the best of luck to whoever gets my job next. The only advice I can offer is to leave library-thinking aside and let your imagination take over. (Also, read my book.)


While packing for my move I donated 316 books from my personal collection to the GT Library. Like many libraries we have a book swap shelf (take one, leave one) that is always in need of more books. I am keeping most of my good stuff, but there are a few interesting titles: The Music of Chance, The Conquistador, Cryptonomicon, and Pattern Recognition. Hopefully they will end up in good hands. Our students need more fun stuff.

There are many people here that I have enjoyed working with, but I have to give a big thanks to Dottie Hunt. She is a fabulous multimedia designer and a big picture thinker. Many exciting ideas were brewed in our humble offices. Thanks for everything .e

I also have to say that the students at Georgia Tech are really incredible. They made my job very easy.

Ok, I’ll leave it at that for now. I’m off to California. My blog will be on a short hiatus, however if you feel really compelled to know what I’m doing follow me on Twitter. I have to warn you though-- it is probably nothing very exciting. If you want to learn more about the type of work I was doing head over to Designing Better Libraries and read: Designing the premier group study experience on campus: The Georgia Tech Library, 2West Project.

Thanks for reading. See you in June.

(Also, pardon the mess while I revamp my blog. It could be an RSS nightmare, but it has to be done.)

   

just a grab-bag of stuff

I’ve been on the road for what feels like forever— here is a quick grab-bag post to get things rolling again.

They take trash seriously UW-Madison: a garbage receptacle at every desk!

 
We often seem to have hiccups with our print system. Perhaps this is a novel approach we should consider:  the honor system. (I was actually shocked to see students putting money it the cup—oh those quaint liberal arts college students.)

 
Always consider your audience. During semester breaks we have a surge in Chinese students, and so we try to speak with them as directly as possible.

A few weeks ago I was walking to the parking deck when I came across this sign.
 
I was mildly interested but kept on walking. A few yards further I saw another sign.

And then another and another—and decided to alter my path. What was this mysterious “culture”? Long story short, it directed me to a room that was empty by the time I arrived, anticlimactic for sure. Doesn’t that make you wonder what happened? Was it an event? A speaker? A display? A hoax? Were there students studying people as they encountered the signs to see what they would do when they lead to nowhere? I’ve never have the answers (like Lost) but there is a lesson here. The fact that the signage had no descriptive information makes it all the more intriguing. Consider how you might employ this technique on your campus or surrounding community.


Thanks: I’d like to say thanks to the libraries and individuals who have purchased my book. I appreciate all of the feedback I’ve received. Oh and I find it interesting that none of the 30-something libraries in the Georgia consortium have ordered it--  that pretty much sums things up.

Note:  I have a few “serious” posts planned for the next few weeks. Then I am probably going to take my blog offline for a bit in order to clean, retag, and redesign it. Thanks for reading.

When does a leader become a leader?

There is lot of anticipation throughout the building about our new Library Dean. It is only natural that people would be concerned when change is ahead. This prompts me to wonder: when does a leader become a leader. Obviously once she starts drawing a paycheck she owns the title, but in a philosophical way, when does she become the leader of the Georgia Tech Library. Does she have to reorganize? Does she have to launch a renovation or a big project? At what point does the crossover occur? When and how does she go from being “the dean from that other school” to “our dean?”

 

Her second day on the job will be our CeLIBration event… hopefully it won’t be our last one.

Be like Emeril: my response to Steven Bell

A few weeks ago Steven Bell posted about librarian careers on the ACRL Blog. He urged us not to worry about where we are professionally- that careers are like marathons. He described the ebb and flow of the hills and valleys that we encounter and instead of getting caught up in the spotlight, encouraged us to think strategically about how we can position ourselves for the next five to ten years.

Well spoken for his generation, however my generation only cares about celebrity. Turn on CNN and you’ll probably see something about Britney Spears within ten minutes. Flip to MTV and you’ll see 16 year old princesses crying because some second-rate band won’t play at a party. Open the New York Times and you’ll read about “hip” librarians.

We’ve become a culture of instant success; Sartre’s nightmare of fashion above all else. The American Dream has shifted away from a good job, a white picket fence, two kids, and a dog--- and is now about prominence, contempo-organic living space, and 15 minutes of reality TV fame.

And the thing is… I would not want it any other way.

What the library profession needs are transformative personalities. Emeril Lagasse is a perfect example. Before he came along my diet was microwaveable, and cooking shows were horribly boring. Martha Stewart is my grandmother’s brand. Emeril brought style, flair, showmanship, along with expertise. He opened the doors for others like Bobby Flay, Jamie Oliver, and even Rachael Ray. If you look at the Food Network demographics over the past decade I’m sure you’ll see a dramatic increase in male viewers, and it’s not all just because of Giada.

Emeril transformed cooking; he made it cool, popular, and approachable. The same can be said for Howard Schultz and coffee. Before Starbucks the town I grew up in had one coffee house where lots of wanna-be pretentious artist types hung out, along with the wanna-be wanna-be’s like me. Growing up no one talked about coffee, that was something our parents drank. Now there is coffee shop on every corner and someday there will be one in every library.

Emeril and Schultz have had a tremendous impact not only on the food and beverage industry, but on our society. Why don’t librarians think like that? Why don’t we talk about experiences instead of transactions? Bell urges us to ford the river, but I say build big bridges.

Happy New Year everyone.

The Library Student Journal is too cool for me

Was I ever this presumptuous?

“Library Student Journal believes that in many ways the average LIS student today understands the average user better than does the average LIS professional.”
More

If I ever sounded like that, I sincerely apologize.

CDW-G - tell us the story

CDW-G missed out on a branding opportunity. They feature our library in a recent Chronicle advertisement (and of course they had to sneak the cliché books in to make it appear scholarly) yet they don’t mention Georgia Tech. They should have connected it to our ACRL award and something along the lines of their equipment serving a dynamic community and could even drop a number like over one million pages are printed each year, etc.

They should have devised a story rather than just a photo of some random students at some random library. Why not feature several different libraries throughout the year and link to case study material online about how great their printers, computers, and electronic accessories work. Show how easily they can be configured, and how users love them. Make it easy for campus and library IT staff to adopt successful systems. Tell us the story, give us examples, explain why a library should use your products. Let me compare my setup with others to see if would be beneficial to switch.

Learning to think on your feet—advice?

Ok, so I answered a few questions for the Chronicle today and totally botched it. The reporter wanted it to be off the cuff to get a “fresh” response, but I feel that my answers were insufficient. I don’t think I mentioned experience or engagement-- two of my big themes—at all. When the piece comes out, I plan to post more thoughtful responses, but so what? Faculty and admin read the Chronicle and it would have been nice to come across as more articulate for the sake of academic libraries in general. The questions were terrific, but my answers were so watered-down and uninspiring. It’s embarrassing.

So how can I fix this, or can I? Is it a personality trait or something that can be developed? I like public speaking in general, when I have control of the content, but quick responses to questions like what is the future of academic libraries or what comes next after the learning commons—those leave me tongue tied. When I think about concepts like these, I go into a long stream-of-conscious, very abstract processing mode and then eventually spit out 3 or 4 concise tactical bullet points. Yet some people I know have the gift of the gab. I’ve watched some of our admin answer questions on-the-fly like skilled politicians. The corporate types I’ve seen are aces at this too.  So how does one gain this skill? Giving presentations is one thing, but answering interview questions is a whole different ballgame. I'm fine with job interviews, but dealing with the press is intimidating. I am much more image-conscious and conservative. Advice?  Thanks.

Post #100 - A Recap

Post #100. Not bad for a year and three months, however I know many other bloggers hit that number every other month. So, if you've been around since the beginning, I thank you for sticking with me. If you are a new reader, thanks for checking this out. And… if you are a random web searcher who stumbled in—sorry to waste your time.

I decided to change the look around a bit— fresh things up. And since this is a milestone, I offer some of my favorite posts. Let's stroll down memory lane:

Am I Too Commercial?
You get an ALA book deal and they call you a sellout. Ya gotta love the wannabes and the never-beens.


Library Closing Announcement
Hands-down the best closing announcement in the ARL. You disagree? Post yours.


Charging for overdues is insulting!
The age old question—should or shouldn't libraries charge overdue fines? The highlight for me was being called “a lazy, irresponsible git.” Ya gotta love those Canadians!


The CeLIBration Posts (multipart series)
The Georgia Tech Library's annual welcome event.


The LibQUAL+ posts: satisfaction tool (free download) & ARL Analytics (my review) & niche


When Hollywood takes over your library
Shannyn Sossamon, enough said!


Sin, Death, and Resurrection
An epic tale of redemption from the land of facebook.


Modern Knowledge Spaces (video)
A student documentary about our commons. I was very impressed by their sophistication and perception.


US vs. UK Libraries
Round 1: (patron satisfaction) goes to the colonies. Next up we battle Canada . Coming for you Paul !


Second Life: Lessons from Woodbury
Featuring the screenshots that I must have stolen from The Chronicle

So there you have. Thanks again for reading.

And oh yeah, Elsevier— I'm still waiting on that check . Maybe you guys should donate it to worthwhile charity instead?

Incoming Students vs. Current Students: The Battle for Library Space

I'm conflicted on this one. I am very sentimental toward incoming freshmen-- we definitely want them to have a positive experience during the orientation process. All of our incoming students use the Library to register for classes, giving us great exposure: they get to see all the computers, the cafe, the space, the possibilities.

In the past we've closed a portion of our main lab to accommodate this process, however next week we're closing our entire lab to current students in favor of incoming students. Sure there are other locations on campus as well as within the Library for current students to use computers (and technically they are required to own computers) but I hate displacing them. Next week is the week before finals, so you can imagine they will be a little stressed.

It's an interesting question of priority. Do you favor the incoming students, making sure that their initial experience on campus are very positive, make them feel welcomed, be accommodating, or... do you take care of the students who are already here, who are in class, and who have already paid tuition?

We'll see how it shakes down. Last week we closed half of our main lab for orientation and the side designated for current students was filled-- so I anticipate many students feeling slighted in favor of incoming freshmen-- it's a matter of seniority, and this time baby brother won out. This is what Tech students commonly refer to as "the shaft" -- the administrative fabric of the campus (including us) purposefully aiming to make the experience as difficult and inconvenient as possible.

Like I said, I'm pretty torn on this decision. One thing I do like though is that when students go to register they keep parents away-- all those Helicopter Parents just want to cry as their son goes off on his own-- it's kind of fun to watch actually.